Every month at TechRaptor, I take a look at all the games releasing the following month. I then make a list highlighting games of interest and writing a short blurb. With hundreds of games releasing each month, this is not a short process, but I do it because of games like Crossing Souls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556ZHFLfEKA Coming to Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux and PlayStation 4 on February 13th, Crossing Souls is an 80s themed, story-heavy action game that strongly caught my eye. First discovering it while making my list of games releasing in February 2018, the 80s animation and fun gameplay caught my eye. I took some time to reach out to Fourattic the developers behind Crossing Souls to find out more.
TechRaptor: First off in your own words can you introduce us to your game Crossing Souls.Fourattic: Crossing Souls is an Action Adventure with orthogonal 2D view and an 80s looking style. At the beginning, we wanted to recreate in some way experiences like The Legend of Zelda or the very recent indie game Hyper Light Drifter, this is why graphically we took a lot of inspiration from them. But during the development, the game became more like a “feelings-guided” adventure. We put a lot of importance on the plot and relationships between the main characters and the world. Very similar to what other games like Final Fantasy used to do. Anyway, once you play it there are some key ideas that make (we think) the experience different from those referenced. But we do not want to spoil you so much!
TR: How does Crossing Souls play? What games inspired your style of gameplay?FA: Basically, in the game you can control five different characters. Each one has different abilities and weapons, which will have to be mixed in order to overcome all the challenges that are waiting for them: exploration, hundreds of NPC from different epochs, solving puzzles, looking for treasure and fighting against enemies.
Our main inspiration was the Zelda games, mostly A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. We also took some inspiration from a french game that we love, a classic gem called Little Big Adventure 2. We have taken a lot more references from other games that are maybe not so similar: Monkey Island, Outrun, 1942. Because as we said, Crossing Souls has some differing gameplay ideas during its adventure.
TR: You've said you took inspiration from movies like The Goonies and Stand by me. Are there any games which you have taken inspiration from?
FA: We love indie games and they were the reason why we are making games so, we should say: Superbrothers Sword & Sorcery (although we love every game that come from Capy Games :D ), Paradise Lost: First Contact, Gods Will Be Watching, Fez, and To The Moon.
TR: The 80s aesthetic is really popular right now with media like Stranger Things and the new IT movie. Why did you choose an 80s aesthetic? And why do you think the 80s have come back in such a big way?FA: We choose this 80s aesthetic for taste and nostalgic reasons. Take into account that we started writing the script back in 2014 and Super 8 was the only big revival thing that was out back then. So we didn’t know that the 80s would have such a come back in this way. The 80s were a very special decade with lots of awesome things for us (concerning movies, tv and music), so we tried to embrace them as much as we can BUT we tried to keep our own personality too. We just love the magic in every 80s movie, where anything can happen and you don't need CGI to believe it. So we decided to make our own 80s movie, which is totally playable. However, Crossing Souls has a darker plot than the average movie from that epoch, you will notice this while you play the game.
TR: The style of your cutscenes is drastically different from the gameplay. Why did you make this decision?
FA: Because we think cartoons works better for some key moments in the game to let the players know the importance of a moment and bring them a nostalgic feeling. At one time we all were kids waiting for our favorite Saturday morning cartoon.
TR: You have described Crossing Souls as being about friendship. What is more important to you in a game a touching story or fun gameplay?FA: Both is ideal for us. We started this game, writing its script before figuring out the final gameplay system. But once we had the overall story and we felt happy with the key moments of the story, we started focusing on the gameplay isolated from the story. Making it fun without any dramatic effect around. Just being sure it is fun to play with those characters inside the world we had created. We have changed the scenarios of the game A LOT of times, just to fit better and better the pacing we wanted for the game. We wanted the player to feel like they are in an adventure where anything can change in no time and we think at the end players would remember this game for the feelings that the story and gameplay can create.
TR: Do you have any last words you want to say to our readers?
FA: This is our first game, ever, and seeing how all this is actually happening is something we really enjoy. It still surprises us every day. Hopefully, the players will feel all the love we have put in every detail of the game. Over 3 years we have been focused on our particular adventure. Now it is the time for sharing it with all of you! Be ready for Crossing Souls!
We would like to thank Fourattic for their time speaking with us.
You can find out more about Crossing Souls on their website, or reach out to Fourattic on Twitter.